The two principal tasks pursued by the Central Tracing Agency at the ICRC in Geneva are to maintain links between prisoners and their families and to trace persons who have disappeared or have been separated from each other as a consequence of various events (international conflicts, civil wars, internal disturbances).

This introduction will be heard on three continents for the first time on 23 November 1971. On that date, the ICRC will inaugurate a beamed transmission radio programme. The system will reach all countries along a predetermined line, in contrast to the system of circle transmission over 360 degrees reaching only countries near the transmission centre.

On several occasions, we have published information about the relief operation undertaken by the ICRC in Jordan, with the cooperation of the League, National Societies, institutions and governments, during the last few months of 1970. But the richly illustrated Final Report which the International Committee is now publishing gives a complete picture of the action, and we think it worth while to reproduce the text, especially as it is followed by tables from which our readers will see who were the generous donors who participated in the action and the extent of the contributions received and forwarded.

The importance of the ICRC telecommunications service, which has its main station in Geneva, increased in 1970. Before setting out the information bearing witness to this fact, we would briefly recall the origin and development of this service.

In 1970, the ICRC, through its delegates in Israel and the occupied territories as well as those in Arab countries, continued its activities consistent with the Geneva Conventions. Their tasks consisted essentially in visiting civilian and military prisoners, in delivering family messages, in organizing the re-uniting of members of families that had been separated and in tracing missing persons.

In its preceding issue, International Review had announced, after publishing the text of two letters in which the ICRC drew the attention of National Societies to the importance of an ever-wider diffusion of the Geneva Conventions, that a further letter would be printed relative to University courses on international humanitarian law. This runs as follows:

In its circular sent in January 1971, the International Committee of the Red Cross had the honour to inform you, in a provisional account, of the action undertaken by some thirty National Societies in the important realm of the dissemination of knowledge on the Geneva Conventions, consistent with resolution IX adopted by the XXIst International Conference of the Red Cross at Istanbul.

On several occasions, International Review has mentioned the efforts of the International Committee of the Red Cross to disseminate knowledge of the principles of the Geneva Conventions in schools, through the publication of a textbook “The Red Cross and My Country” with its complement the “Teacher's Manual”. It is highly desirable that these booklets, edited and illustrated by the ICRC, should be made known and disseminated as widely as possible.